


Noble Rot

by HardingHightown



Category: Baldur's Gate
Genre: F/M, Gen, Halflings, Multi-perspective, if you want straight to the point plot, it aint here
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-07
Updated: 2020-11-26
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:02:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 9,344
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27442378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HardingHightown/pseuds/HardingHightown
Summary: Gelrinn isn't committed to much. Not to one home, not to one version of the story of their life, not to being perceived as anything that is set in stone. Wyll wants their names to be written through the ages, and sees their romance as one for the bards to sing of for years to come... but it's easy to have noble ideas for yourself when you're not the one singing them.Wyll and gender-fluid Halfing!Main Character, switching perspectives. Obviously this may all change as the game grows! No real plan, just moments.(Gelrinn uses fluid pronouns, and they will change depending on who is the narrative focus of the chapter and how they view them. A small CN for those who might not be comfortable with perceived misgendering, but the character themselves uses she/him/they interchangeably depending on the person and situation)
Relationships: Wyll (Baldur's Gate)/Mizora, Wyll (Baldur's Gate)/Original Character, Wyll (Baldur's Gate)/Original Character(s), Wyll (Baldur's Gate)/Original Female Character(s)
Kudos: 12





	1. Gelrinn

**Author's Note:**

> A/N At this point, Wyll is still using she/her pronouns for Gelrinn; as stated before, pronouns are she/they/he interchangeably but for ease I've used they/them for their internal monologue

Gelrinn didn’t know what this new emotion was. They had never had time to really explore this kind of thing, yet alone meet people whom they deemed worth giving attention to. They didn’t really think of other people beyond the needs of the moment, alliances that could be used and left behind, people to be deceived or persuaded or changed or, at worst, challenged. There was nobody in Gelrinn’s life that had stayed in it for longer than five years, and there was nobody in their life that they would have wanted to know them well enough to be more than a passing note, a step to ascend past, leave behind.

  
They didn’t think this was a bad thing, as such. Not something worse losing sleep over, certainly. Some people were more useful than others, some people served their purpose more quickly than others. Sometimes people stayed for longer, sometimes they viewed Gelrinn as a friend, opened their homes to them, wrote letters that remained un-replied to for months later. There were people for certain that remembered the face that had been showed to them with a sadness, some others with an anger that comes from the rejection of intimacy. Gelrinn understood it, but did not waste time worrying about the feelings of people that did not aid their needs anymore.

  
This was the first time Gelrinn had ever conceived of wanting somebody in their life… just _because_.

  
Wyll was handsome, that was the simple reading of it, but handsome had never really swayed them in any real sense before. Sure, it was easier to allow somebody to indulge their desires if they looked good, but Gelrinn had never really found a reason to pursue another person just for that. Sex was another tool, not necessarily unpleasant, but not something that would drive a decision, nor cloud one. Yet they found themselves thinking of Wyll’s smile, how it curved more on one side than the other, how softly and openly he smiled when training with the tiefling children when the other humans were obviously giving them a wide berth. But a smile had never tempted them before, not the cunning smile of their old runner Conwallis who lay with them for twenty nights back in Waterdeep, nor the soft sweet smile of their first love Amelia, the kind quiet daughter of the tavern master back home who gave her pittance of an earning to hear Gelrinn spin a new tale. They’d never held a place for either of them, not based on a smile or a sweet face.

  
Wyll was noble. Sort of. Or at least came from a background where noble ideas ruled. Ideas around etiquette and heroism and being the best, the boldest, the richest, the most revered. The folk hero act wasn’t completely convincing, at least not to them; there was something that was always off about a hero who proclaimed that they were a hero of the people. Surely that was for others to decide, not he? At least he did seem to want to live by those ideals; even if Gelrinn wasn’t convinced he (or indeed anybody) was actually capable of being a hero in that vein, Wyll wanted to do the best by people. That was obvious. The nobility part interested them for the wrong reasons, almost certainly. Gelrinn had never seen a noble step outside of their cosy life for anything except sex or drink or some other nefarious reason, but Wyll seemed to want to do it to really make an impact on the world. That made him… different.  
Will was a noble, but did not hold conceits like a noble. Well, outside of the obsession with heroism. Gelrinn always thought it was easy for noble people to get drunk on the stories of heroes, to see only the valor and none of the necessity. Back in childhood, they had heard all of the same stories, but away from the comforts of Halfling homes they had a different side to them. All Gelrinn saw in the stories of becoming a hero was the need to escape, and that was what had always driven them forward to take on work, to barter for more coin, to memorialise their own exploits, to take on new faces and be other than what everybody else saw them as. To be a hero was an excuse for constant reinvention, not to plug themselves into a myth, a story, and be the man or woman of the hour. Better to be Adriana the sweet noble ward one day, and then to be the street urchin Angus another. Better to be able to take on the conflicting contracts and take money on both. Better to take the gamble you could win, not the gamble you would always lose.

  
Wyll was a warlock. Not that he had told them yet, but it was obvious. The greeting he had received at the burning inn, the stories he had told about a sudden change in fortune. It had taken Gelrinn over twenty years of study to become the adventurer they were today, and still there would be study for the rest of their life. To have the talent on the field he possessed took extraordinary, gods-given talents, or taking those talents from the jaws of a lion. This, if Gelrinn were to be honest with themselves, was what intrigued them the most about Wyll. It was one thing to be a hero, a man of valour, but to be one that had struck a deal with a devil for the privilege? They had known many warlocks over the years, many who walked between planes with their power and privilege. None of them had ever done it for noble reasons, and there were doubts in their mind that Wyll was any different. For sure, if you do noble things with your gift that should be all that matters, but there was something about the fear in his eyes when he spoke of his path, of the doubt the flickered when he lingered, looking to the camp and to his compatriots, that compelled Gelrinn beyond any man they had ever met before.

  
Wyll was a conundrum. Perhaps Gelrinn wasn’t attracted to him at all, they thought with a grin, maybe it was all just another puzzle to unpick, another bet to make. Would he fall to his patron, was his action on this realm pleasing to them at all? Or would he make the real heroes sacrifice and try to break free? There, Gelrinn realised, was the rub. When they thought of the idea of Wyll giving up any part of himself, of putting himself in any more danger than they already did every day, it ate away at them like this damn tadpole in the brain. It was not enough of an explanation to say it was purely a game of chance. This was one they wanted to load the dice in, to change the outcome for. This, Gelrinn realised with a grimace, was somebody who they might even put themselves in the path of danger to protect.

  
Wyll was something more to them than they had anticipated, wanted, desired, or experienced before. And it was not a welcome feeling.


	2. Wyll

A Halfling Bard was a fun ally to have, in theory. Always so sweet, always so ready to just make friends, have an easy life, drink too much, sing too loud and sleep in all of the next day. He remembered the Haflings he had encountered in the taverns back home as being free with song and free with coin; they were happy to spend all of their coin on revelry, leaving the tavern with all of their days wages spent before they’d even laid their heads down. He had high expectations when he first saw the chief. Big brown eyes, long eyelashes, tousled hair that reminded him of the smiles of the Halfling girls back in Baldur’s gate. In his mind’s eye, he kept remembering her as smiling when they first met. It took him weeks to realise that he’d actually never seen her smile, that is was just an illusion he had created for himself.

  
The expectations he had for her kept getting switched up, changed seemingly with the dawn. One day she would seem like a true hero, a fellow legend in the making. Then she would seem withdrawn, overly-pensive. Then some days she seemed outright cruel, asking for payment where the noble thing would surely to have been to forgo it, or denying comfort to somebody in desperate need of a kind word, instead offering only more questions, more distance. One time he had watched her say to one person that she would be only too happy to do the right thing, only to say the same to that person’s enemy. In the end, both parties were sated, any bloodshed avoided, and a new path was carved out with victory for both. And double the spoils for them.

When he asked her about her choice, she shrugged. “Different people need me to be different people,” she had told him matter-of-factually, not even pausing to look him in the eye to say it. “If I can be the person they need to be inspired by, if I can be the person that they need… that’s fine by me.”

He understood that. He thought.

He always wanted to be a hero because of what a hero could mean to the little people outside of the city. He had always believed that. Away from a life of comfort, of high end parties and hobnobbing in social circles there was a dangerous world, a world where fishermen were swallowed up by monsters and trade routes were ravaged by beasts. Spike, and all that he brought into his life, only spurned that belief further, made it urgent, made it have its own passion, its own story. Those people needed a hero to save them, but they also needed a hero to believe in. He too believed in that: The need for heroes. The need to hear about people doing good. People needed stories as much as they needed fighters. They needed to believe that there was something greater than them out there, they needed something to distract them, to inspire them. He could be that person.

Even at… the cost.

Making a deal with the devil always makes it sound so bad. Really, it’s just an express agreement between two business people, no different than a trade manifest between two houses, no more than the exchange of coin for goods. His patron wanted something, he wanted something, and he had got it. That’s what he told himself, in the worst of it. Of course, memory - the perception of your memory over time particularly - is a funny old thing, and the more he remembered it now the more he saw the trickery that she had put in place, the ways in which she had played into his passion for revenge, the parts of the deal she had slid by him while he was distracted. The skills he had been granted in battle were nothing to be sniffed at, and certainly gave him an edge that was undeniable, but it was something else that made him a hero. There was a confidence in him that he had not truly had before. It was like a part of him had been lifted away, the part of him that limited his potential, the part of him that was scared of not being enough, the part that looked to his father and knew he could never be as talented, as bold or as brave. She had lifted all of those things away. Could he really be anything without that gift from her? Was there really any part of him that could be a hero without her powers coursing through him?

  
He wanted the answer to be yes. He wanted to be the person the bards would sing of for years to come. He needed that answer to be yes.

  
Gelrinn had asked him early on about the name, the Blade of Frontiers. When he’d explained, she’d not said anything back, just stood there looking up at him with that quizzical look she’d sometimes get. The look that just said…. Interesting. And offered no more on whether that interest was good or whether it was bad. When he pressed her on it, she wasn’t forthcoming. “Give me time to think on it. Roll it around my tongue a bit.” She’d said. “I need to get the taste of the words.”  
He’d thought of her tongue for days after.

  
Thinking of other women, other men, other people should not have been forbidden. That was never part of the deal. He had signed away his soul, not his cock, but his mistress was jealous and wrathful, that much had been made clear. He’d first experienced it after the first great victory he had earned in a small village a few days out from the city. The girls were all aflutter, and he was eager to show them what fire coursed through his blood. And then… nothing.   
Well, not quite nothing. His mistress was nothing if not cruel. She would allow him a taste of them, allow him to be ready and willing for them, but the moment that their hands met his cock she would strike, filling his minds with images so foul, taking him completely out of the moment. The first girl it happened with thought he was mad, a possessed spirit taken over the body of the great hero of the hour, a remnant from the supposed ghosts he had ran out. He was run out of that village clutching what little he had of his dignity, and it took many more months to erase the stain of his… false start. Embarrassing. Cruel. Unnecessary. Not a part of the deal at all.

  
Since then he’d not really tried to take satisfaction away from his own hand. She seemed to like that, peering into his thoughts to make sure they were of her. And it was easy enough for them to be about her, her body was beautiful, her face in both her disguise and her real form made like perfection. It was easy as the years went by to turn to her out of need. It was easy to think of the way she would kiss his neck when it was the only intimate touch he had experienced in years, it was easy to forget the sulphur and concentrate on the flowers. He’d tell wistful village folk that he had a sweetheart back home, and most of them liked the romanticism enough to leave it there. Most of them. Those that pushed it always regretted it. He wished he’d left them with better memories than the fear in their eyes when he pushed them away. It had been years since he had even tried, and he knew better than to try anything with somebody whom he actually… he wanted to be around. He wanted to know. 

He made the decision then he would tell Gelrinn about her. It was the right thing to do.


	3. Gelrinn

Of course there was a woman. With men like Wyll, there was always a woman.

  
They couldn’t blame him. Not really. He was so driven by his passions that it was going to all come back to a man or woman that he needed to save, or be indebted to. Or maybe both.

  
Gelrinn felt a pang of annoyance at it anyway. Of course, the first person they had been interested in for over a decade was somebody so ruled by their whims. Aging humans had never been a strong skill (there were as many ever-youthful as there were ravaged by life, as humans seemed to wear every slight trouble in their eyes hair and skin) but perhaps he was young, perhaps he was still at that age where passions ruled over pragmatism. All were all capable of falling for that kind of thing.

  
Gelrinn wondered what the woman would have been like. At a guess human, that made sense to them. Wyll seemed to be somebody who would be attracted to his own. They imagined it would be somebody who looked somehow dangerous, a little out there, a little un-wholesome. For all his belief that he was a man of virtues, Gelrinn knew that often men like that desired the dangerous, thought they could save them from themselves. It was something they had seen a hundred times in great heroes, and it was always their downfall.

  
Perhaps they were being too harsh. Maybe she was just a nice girl that fell into a bad way. Maybe she was just a simple sweet tavern girl that he had wooed with his honeyed words. He was certainly forthcoming with those. Maybe he had been the danger coming into her life, and Gelrinn was just projecting… something.

  
Being a halfing away from other halflings always leads to a strange feeling of otherness that they wondered if any of their other kin felt. When you were the size of most other folk’s children it was easy to be infantilised, be thought of as lesser owing only to your stature. In the company they found themselves in they were the only smallfolk in a sea of tall faces, and it made it even harder to feel like they were seen as equal, of possibly greater experience than some of the others even. Maybe Wyll did not even register them as… that kind of damsel, that kind of type. Maybe they had no need to be any kind of damsel. Maybe this whole debate was foolish.

  
Still, this person was obviously precious to him, or if not precious obviously important to the point of distraction. Gelrinn wondered if they had ever been a distraction for somebody. A curiosity certainly in most cases, and proxy for bad men with criminal tastes in the worst. A fun partner, a friend with benefits, but never a prize worth the saving or a woman worth the desiring. The latter had been something Gelrinn had felt more comfortable with, given that the title of woman never quite fit, like an itchy unflexible wool. Women they had met were things of glamour, they held themselves in a way that seemed unnatural in their body. Sometimes people perceived them as a boy and that didn’t quite seem right either; there was a tightness in that that didn’t feel right, an expectation that wasn’t something they wished to try and fulfill. Wyll spoke often of the man he was, the man his father was, and the idea of those expectations hanging on you made Gelrinn feel like they could not breathe.  
Baldur’s gate was the longest they had lived anywhere excepting Derlusk in their youth. It was baggy enough to feel comfortable. The city was full of people, of guilds and of different taverns, of temples and kith and kin of all kinds of backgrounds. There was space to fit into different roles there. Sometimes Gelrinn would hide themselves in baggy clothes and a hood and deliver messages, interested to see how the recipient would take the news they were receiving, interested in who would pay the messenger for their silence, say be on your way boy or thank you kind girl and press a coin in their hand. Gelrinn was interested too in those who saw the messenger as disposable, and their shock when their voice ripped them to shreds instead. It was never a preference to resort to violence, but certain places bred a violent nature as if it were a cultural stamp of honour.

  
Baldur’s Gate was a city of many parts. Nobles had parties at which they played their flute, charmed so as not to show a true face, most often charmed to seem taller when seated. There was a feeling that Halflings were lesser folk to them. Gelrinn didn’t feel the need to challenge that as such, especially not when trying to be discreet. Those parties were for Nobles to be seen at, and everybody else to try and disappear at. 

  
Musicians were often given a comfortable room for their respite when doing the noble’s work, and those rooms were often close to libraries full of books they probably never read and had no idea were valuable. Easy pickings for a well trained eye, and they were certainly a well trained eye. The music in vogue still at those kind of parties was second nature to them, the tastes of the big coastal cities had changed little in the forty years they had been a practicing musician. It gave more scope to look around the rooms, see who was present and who was missing, eavesdrop on interesting conversations and see if there were any good deals that they would be able to glean. It was always better to get the jobs based on names your could drop, hints that you could go and research and uncover. They were not the smartest in book smarts in the college (reading long tomes was enough to make them weep even now) but with the right training you can get the best parts of the information without such long legwork. Be smart, not just book smart.

  
The more common folk would crowd the taverns in the evenings, happy to pay a bard for either a handsome telling of the most recent news from the coast or for a happy tune to dance to when they were in their cups. The competition for those spots was fierce, and there were greater egos that needed stroking most of the time who would fight for those tabletop stages with their teeth. Gelrinn’s favourite were the simple folk, who would still try and press a copper in hand for a simple tune on the harp, despite that copper likely being the most of their wages. Their money was always given back to them; Gelrinn was much more interested in their stories than their coin.  
Adventuring hadn’t been their bag for quite some time now. There was an easy comfort to quick jobs in the city. The big music gigs paid fine, the small spy jobs even better. It was easier than ever to find a fence for a fancy tome, easy to spend the money on a comfortable lodging for a few months. An easier life than that of an adventuring bard, with enough challenges to make it interesting.

  
Gelrinn had toyed with a permanent address in the city a few times. The first time, they had lodged in rooms for respectable young ladies hosted by an excellent woman named Mathild, who asked for two months board in advance and had loose rules, which felt only fair. Many of the fellow boarders traded sex for money, which was as good a living as any in the city, and lead to some interesting adventurers passing through for entertainment. Gelrinn offered to play the harp for some of the girls, and many of them took them up on it. It added something, they always said, be it a nice atmosphere or a pair of eyes to make sure the clients were playing nice. Or, in some cases, the clients enjoyed an extra pair of eyes in the room. There was no accounting for tastes.  
Many of them proved to be reliable sources of news from other towns as well, and not just the same small news from the Sword Coast. Gelrinn had sought out news from Brightwood, and was glad to hear that the town seemed to be settling under Lady Esmeralda instead of her idiot brother, and with Blacksmith Grigor taking more of a civic role. Of all the people Gelrinn had met in their travels, they had probably the most fondness for Grigor and Esme.  
Perhaps Esme had been their damsel to rescue. Perhaps after you’ve saved the girl, you have to seek out other entertainments.

  
Not that Gelrinn had ever told Esme this, of course. It wouldn’t have been appropriate, and besides, and affection doesn’t always mean anything more than just that. Esme would have wanted a partner that can give all of it; all of the love, all of the time and affection and physical love. Children. Esme always wanted children of her own, and now had a lineage to protect with Landor in the ground rotting. Last adventurer through from those parts said that she had agreed to marry a young Waterdhavian lord of some minor house some years back. A few years younger than her, a little money and a lot to gain from the match. That seemed fitting. The family had ties there after all, ties that Gelrinn had taken advantage in the first place to find the eye of the needle to get into the family. Another reason it could never have been pursued. To start anything familial on a lie would never lead to anything but torment. When Gelrinn had left, they had written a letter explaining all of it, the disguise, the deception, the steering of Landor to reveal himself, the missing gold from the vault. Then they had hidden it in the room, reasoning that it was up to chance whether Esme would want to find it, would find it, and what she would do when she did. Another letter took pride of place on the bed, large letters simply saying. “I had to go. I’m sorry.”

  
The past was the past, except when it wasn’t. They had been quite happy not thinking about people they had left behind until this new circumstance. They had been quite keen to not think of the stories that came before, until they had been forced to think of themselves as a hero, and not just one figure amongst many.

  
And hey, perhaps Wyll was Gelrinn’s damsel, if they were to look to the stories for such kind of thing. Maybe Wyll needed saving from himself. Maybe they would be the one to do it.


	4. Gale

Wyll was interesting. More interesting than he seemed. Any man with a sending stone for an eye was more interesting than a run of the mill hero, a storybook made living. If those really ever existed. Gale had always questioned the existence of real heroes - surely the moment that you define yourself as such, you have ceased to be one? The moment you accept the mantle, your intentions have been compromised. You are in it for the wrong reasons. And a man who refers to himself by a seemingly self-chosen mantle? That could only be the indication of something else as a motivator. There’s something about insisting on a title that always interested him. By all means, boast of your talents, talk of your affiliations, but to insist on a name evoked by society to give a status? A status that was often not as earned as the individual might have liked to think it was? It was a strange idea to him. A noble idea, but not in the true sense of the word. An idea that only really seemed to matter to those who had bought into those hierarchies set by the nobility.

The Blade of Frontiers was an interesting name to adopt. Gale doubted that such a name would have come from the common folk of the Sword Coast. The idea of Frontiers had fallen out of fashion as a term for this part of the world, the peoples settled enough to not desire the term anymore. It seemed to affected to be anything that would be said in the euphoria after battle by weary, bloodied men and women scared for their lives and overflowing with simple relief at living another day. Or maybe that was just another assumption on his part. Perhaps that particular desperate village was a reclusive order of scholars. Or artisans, or book scribes. Perhaps they had taken the term of Frontiers from the city scribes out into the world. Unlikely, though if the past weeks had taught them anything it was that there was a level of probability for almost anything.

  
The Blade made more sense, tentatively, though Wyll fought with a rapier in the formal Baldurian style, a style that was more for show than for wounding and had developed in the grand reception rooms of the higher nobles as a form of entertainment. Flashy, exciting, but certainly not the most efficient way to use a sword arm. Also would anybody witnessing that fight and seeing the weapon really think of it as a blade? More a… pointy stick. Something made to needle rather than to slash away, certainly not what one would think of as a blade cleaving through injustice and evil. The frontiers part, that was he supposed from the collective of the places that he had gained his notoriety. Likely small settlements, the kind that tended to pop up out of necessity around the natural meeting points of traders camping for the night, small badly defended places that were built in the obvious path, making them easy prey for raiding. It always amazed Gale how little the rest of the world seemed capable of thinking past themselves; that if they saw the path as convenient, useful, obvious, then so would any other party that would stumble upon it, friend or foe. The point, that he was finding himself slipping away from too easily, was that these places were unlikely to collect their experiences themselves. That the bards passing through those towns would have likely scribed a name specific to the most recent of the places he had waltzed through. So it begged the question: was it a name that he had ascribed himself? Spread to the taverns ahead of arriving? Was there a legend that Wyll had made to grow into, a boot to fit a foot that had not been measured?

  
He could always ask him, of course. Though he doubted he’d get anything near a straight or truthful answer about it.

  
Maybe it was all by the by. Wyll certainly wanted to do the right thing. None of his heroics put others in danger, not that he had seen. Did motivations really matter, when the actions then speak for themselves?  
It was a question that bothered him about himself often, and one he liked to duck out of as much as possible.

  
Was it enough to want the best things to happen? Was it enough to approve of those things that could be seen as selfless, as kind, to vocalise an affirmative to let others know that yes, that was acknowledged and aprroved? Was there anything he had done that really made him, Gale of Waterdeep, a Good Man?

Well. Perhaps it did not matter. He wasn’t the one calling himself the hero.

  
He was glad that the company he found himself in wasn’t too preoccupied with the idea of heroics outside of Wyll. Potentially Lae’Zel also, at a push. Her ideas of heroics, duty, and right were fascinating to him, and prodding her with questions was always a delight. He had never met somebody so quick, so focused, and yet so completely unaware of themselves and the world around them outside of their orders. She was fascinating. He had always had an interest in the ideals of such peoples as the Gith. It was his greatest pride and privilege as a human to have the freedoms of thought that he possessed, the freedoms of enquiry and action and the choice of path. He had chosen his Goddess, his mistress. To be born to a whole people whose soul purpose was the mission and devoted path of another? To live in a hierarchy that demanded everything of you, that made you give all of yourself, without question, without choice? That, now that was interesting. Throw in to the mix the absolute flame that burned at the heart of somebody like Lae’Zel, a purity of purpose and a fire deep within? That was a treat to watch, especially with… everybody else.  
He had been interested to see what a Gith would make of a Halfing. On paper, they could not be from more disparate environments. The Halflings in Waterdeep were sweet folks, unworried by the world, happy to spend their coin on the better distractions of life, happiest in big family units with a drink in both hands and a hot meal to share in the communal pot. There had not been many opportunities to see whether or not Gelrinn was of that ilk, but it seemed unlikely from what he had seen so far. Gelrinn drank little aside from what was in their pack. Even potions from another hand were looked on with suspicion. That, he thought to himself, indicated a person who was unlikely to be the sort to relax in company, familial or no. As a contrary observation, he found Lae’Zel’s faith in her people to be fascinating. The description she gave of what this purification would entail was not without questionable elements (the positioning of a rod at the head and blasting it didn’t exactly lead him to believe that any of them would be coming out of that particular encounter living) but she was devoted to it. Her people knew best, unquestionably. The idea that anybody would afford to be unquestioning in this day and age was truly interesting, but that he supposed game with the territory if it was the sole reason for your creation. 

  
Perhaps knowing freedoms was what changed a person. It must have been impossible for somebody like Lae’Zel to even conceive of a world away from that duty. Knowing you were once a free person, that would have been more difficult. In that, he could understand the hedonism of Astarion. Centuries of being bound to the wills of another? Of being only able to do the whims of a sadistic master? To be free of that, to feel the sunlight again, to find yourself in company again after years away from any others? It must have been like breathing after being submerged under water. He doubted that a man like Astarion would have been particularly restrained as a mortal either. Magistrates in the city were not known for their pure virtues after all.  
Gale had never thought that folk were served by reducing them to the most simple readings of their actions or their words. The great wonder of the world was in the complexities of what could exist behind the assumptions made - but making those assumptions in the first place was always a fun game. The worst of the world came from people being so unwilling to admit they were wrong, find and treasure new information, new hypotheses, and to be happy to switch their stakes based of what they had learned. The great freedom to allow yourself to have been wrong. The great pleasure in learning more and more.

  
There were relationships growing throughout their strange little group that were fascinating to him, little pieces of information offered only through the clash of personalities, of ideals, of worries, of hopes. Unlikely alliances, expected tensions between the faithful, blooming romances. Wyll seemed like a storybook hero; it seemed obvious to begin with that a bard would be drawn to such a figure. A muse. An inspiration. It would be a perfectly balanced fugue of heroism inspiring stories inspiring heroism. A snake eating its own tail. Yet on closer observation it did not quite seem to be so simple. Another enjoyable way to be wrong; this new theory about their relationship was certainly more interesting.   
Gelrinn was not interested in the hero. Gelrinn was interested in what might be behind the myth, and that amused him greatly. It was a fair question, but Gale imagined that a man as handsome as Wyll was not too used to people bothering to ask many questions beyond that. It was also in realising that fact that Gale first edited his conclusions about his little Halfling friend. This was not a simple happy little girl being happy to take things at face value. There was not a hint of naivety in their manner, if you cared to look a little closer. All of the times that a lighthearted quip had game from their mouth, it was a challenge, a test to see if the receiving party would buy the myth of the friendly, homely Halfing girl. Almost everybody had fallen for it. Interesting, and useful for a person with ambitions to hide behind.

  
They had spoken more since that realisation. Gelrinn was not opposed to speaking in some depth around the subject, around and about the subject, clever enough to give enough for even him to be sated the first few times before walking away wondering if he had actually learned anything. That was usually his trick, and when he tried to pull it they saw through it immediately.

  
It was interesting to see the dynamic unveil itself between the two, the curious, prodding, probing mind of what he had concluded must in fact be a trained spy, a dealer of information and stories, and the willing hero who traded everything to a part of such stories. He had hypothesised at first that such a flirtation would end in some kind of wickedly exciting explosion of passions, the hero realising he is being played, the spy taking what they wanted from the tryst and disappearing into the night. That was, in the normal way of things, what people like Gelrinn would do. He knew it, because he had been such a person as well, in years before. There is something to be said for those people that do not put their own ambitions first, the self-sacrificers like the druids of the grove or the soldiers of the Gith. They were certainly likely to be better people than those in the world that served only themselves. And yet there was something in how Gelrinn viewed Wyll that broke through that idea, made him doubt whether they knew what they were doing. He did not think it was as simple as the Hafling being charmed, though Wyll was certainly charming. It wasn’t as basic as a surface level attraction for Wyll either; there was an obvious way that Wyll carried himself around Gelrinn. The swagger was worn away, his hands fidgeting around the handle of his tankard, his eye cast to the ground, his voice no longer carrying across the camp. There was something else brewing, and if he was a slightly less cynical man, he might be convinced that it was something quite genuine.

  
That theory would sit quite low on the probability for now.

  
It felt like a shame to him, in some ways, that they had been drawn together. By all means, there was a potential there for something very sweet, but sweet things rarely made anything more interesting in his eyes. Besides, there was a way in which Gelrinn’s mind worked that interested him. She wasn’t a reader, that was clear. He could imagine that formal learning wasn’t her forte, but there was a natural curiosity that he enjoyed bouncing off, and he wasn’t too proud to admit that he felt jealous of anything else distracting that mind onto more trivial things. He enjoyed their conversations, and missed them when they did not talk deep into the night.

  
Romance was such a waste of attention for a talented mind, an unending, merciless distraction that would lead nowhere profitable. That, at least, was something he knew for certain.


	5. Astarion

He thought the sun on his skin would have been the think he had missed the most. That was the cliche, wasn’t it? The endless enjoyment of being warmed by the heavens. In truth however, he’d barely been out in the sun even in his mortal days, preferring instead the type of vivacity, the frisson that came out when the sun had set. Not immediately after even, there was still too much earnestness in the world as workers sleepily left their tedious jobs to slump back home to their dingy little houses. No, later still, when there was that brief moment of stillness before the night came alive. That was what he had always lived for.

It was always the ones with the most to lose who would venture out into that danger first. Those who did not know yet the dangers of the city at night, the overly-inebriated, the unarmed, the rich of of daddy or mummy’s money. They were always so loud, so obnoxious and flailing. He was sure he must have been the same, but luckily he could not quite remember the details of it, only the love of good wine and good fucking, of rich meats and cheeses and waking up in fine heavy bedlinens deep into the afternoon, forgoing the majority of the day. 

  
After those sorts of people came the predators. Not always looking for blood, mind you. Often money, or a warm willing body, or a companion for the night’s revelry who didn’t mind paying. But yes. Sometimes blood.  
In retrospect a violent end to his mortal existence was always likely. You can only get so rich off of other’s labours before they come to collect their debts. He liked to think he didn’t remember much of the life of a magistrate, and as far as the details of cases, that was true at least. One crying debt case was much like another, but he did remember that an increasing amount of those who came before him had their fates decided not by evidence, but by coin. He wasn’t known for being fair, but what was fairness anyhow? Nothing about the situations that led to the poor sods needing judgement was fair. Nothing about the world they found themselves in now was fair. Nothing about what Cazador had done to him for centuries was fair. But now, there was a new life that he could see within his grasp, and he wasn’t about to let it slip away from him.

  
If he had not missed the sun on his skin, he had certainly missed good company. Unfortunately that too was somewhat lacking in his current environment. Gith weren’t known for their sparkling conversation. The half-elf was pretty enough, but her flitting between cool detached bickering and enough earnest schoolgirl fluttering was exhausting. He was sure a good hundred years back he would have found it endearing, but it was getting rather dull now, and he knew from experience back when he was mortal that women like that rarely wanted to give into their urges when given the chance. Gale was too wordy by far - there was an art to wordcraft that learned men so often used to lack. Many words did not make for exciting words, after all. And then there was Wyll.  
He was stunning to look at, at least. His doublet accentuated his broad shoulders, his scars made his jawline even more chiseled, and the missing eye gave that little frisson of danger. He looked like a man who could sweep you off your feet, and Astarion was sure that many a young man and woman had fantasies of just that, himself included if the night was right. But he could see it. The unmistakable gait of one who is pledged in servitude to another. To one stronger, more powerful, more cruel. He had a knack for spotting those who shared that burden.

  
He had overheard Wyll speak of this woman taken by the drow quite by accident. Truly. Whilst listening in for good gossip was something he truly used to enjoy, there was no need to try to find the best listening spot when Wyll was as subtle as… well. As subtle as a man who brandished his own storybook title was ever going to be. There was a woman he was bound to rescue, and that on the surface could have been the dull, predictable end of it. But there was a shift in his body when he spoke of her, one not of desire, but of an intense fatigue, as if the very mention of her being made him into a scared little prey animal, like the rats that fled from his own grasp at night. It was fear the drove him to find her, and whilst fear and desire were not so opposed as some might think, the fear was the dominant party here.

  
A patron, then? It seemed the most likely. Monster hunters often saw themselves as heroic for dancing with the devil in order to catch that which might be much worse. It was a personal sacrifice, of course, and not a selfish desire to outstrip the talents of their rivals and balance more coin for the privilege of it. They were putting their own happiness aside for the good of the realms. And if that came with a side order of more wealth, more wine, more women, then that was just a happy accident. Wyll seemed like the sort who would be suckered in by a promise. It was one thing to have no options ahead as you bleed out on the street, it was another to willingly sell your soul for the ability to wave a pointy stick around a little better.  
Looking back, he wondered if he would have been so quick to make the decision he made if he knew now what it would mean. Astarion knew it was a question that could drive one quite mad, especially with an eternity to ponder it.  
He was amazed there had been so few attempts from Cazador to retrieve his prize possession. Or perhaps that was a little presumtuous of him. In reality, Cazador likely did not think of him of anything of worth until he was missing, like a spoiled noble child with a double dozen of toys who wants the scraps that are to be thrown away only when the threat of them being lost is upon them. He was not special to such a man, and truly this new focus was unpleasant. Any pleasures that he took felt tainted, at least the first time, by the fear of it.

  
At least the first time.

  
He had been truly surprised that Gelrinn had let him feed, after receiving a swift elbow to the ribs that had been so expertly placed he was sure they had perfected that move over years of fending off those larger than them. He felt like he had seen the workings of their mind as the decision was made, a ticking of possibilities as the choice was decided on. Over time, he had realised that the little Halfing was a great lover of chance, of testing possibilities and risks. He had watched as they played card games alone in the camp, rolled a worn six-sided dice from their pack over and over like some kind of ritual by the candlelight. At this point however, new to each other as they were, he had no other thought than desire.  
Desire can take many forms, of course. In the memory of this moment, he was unsure what desire was playing most freely in his mind. Halflings had not exactly been his taste, but there was something in the manner of Gelrinn that was interesting. Dexterity, perhaps. The mouth like a sailor when speaking to him, almost certainly. Layered on top of that was a more… worthy desire, he supposed. The desire to see if he could break through this command of his master, to not feast on the blood of his fellow men. Then the other desire, the one even more primal. The need to feed. The aching need to taste the blood of a creature. The thing that would make him strong.

  
Her blood had tasted richer than anything he ever remembered tasting, the hit of it settling on the bridge of his nose before spreading through his mind, making him dizzy. When he found that sweet spot, where he had found the resonance in their heartbeats, when the liquid coated his throat to the point where it was all he could taste, he thought he could live in that moment forever.

  
And of course, that was when they had pushed him off and told him never to do it again. The little tease.

  
They were probably right, of course. Halflings being, well, half the size of him, he could have drained her whole body before he’d even realised what he had done. He could have drained them completely, leaving them paler than before, big brown eyes looking up to nothing in the morning, surrounded in the last vestiges of their life’s force. 

  
He had stayed up all night thinking of that. He wished he could have said it was because the thought haunted his morality, made him reconsider what he was doing. But the thought of it thrilled him. The idea of ending their life, this little combative fierce thing, made his skin prickle.

  
Gelrinn continued to warm to the others. Continued to find the language for them to get them onside, continued to probe and find ways to get them to do what was desired of them. He found himself annoyed at how obvious it was; flatter Wyll with sweet words, revere the power of Lae’Zel, let Gale prattle on about some fairy story or other, tell Shadowheart she’s interesting and let her believe it. But with him, the wily little pup was intent on provoking him.

  
There had not been a single compliment in the weeks they had spent together now. Not a single kind word. He had tried to get her sympathies with a story about the pains of his death, the horrors of his subjugation, but nothing. He had tried to find a way to seduce her with well-placed words and charm, he was always quite good at that in the good old days, but there was little she found tantalising in him by the looks of it. There was no easy way in, and she seemed to delight in reminding him of that. In truth, it made it all the more interesting to him. He liked the hunt, and years of catching easy prey was getting old. He enjoyed the friction, because he knew somehow he would best it. She was obviously curious at the least, almost fatally so. She liked a gamble, and liked to be rubbed up the wrong way, as far as he could see. She liked to be able to be a little vulgar, but he was keen for it not to just be an out and out hatred. The bard was a capable fighter, and seemed to be becoming the del facto leader of their merry little band of misfits, so he needed to make sure he was seen as useful, and if not useful, then wanted. He couldn’t risk the little thing trading him out just to see what would happen. 

  
Desire would have been the easiest option, of course, if the little brute would play along. He was handsome still, charming to most, certainly, but the terror did not seem to be taken enough with what he gave, no matter how he tried to present it. He would think they were enjoying a little light hearted to-and-fro, some fun banter, until their eyes would darken and the conversation would be punctured by a curt end. Sometimes he would be the one to throw a spiked comment out, and that always ended as well as could be expected. It was a strange teetering balance they were striking; he was not completely convinced that Gelrinn hated him, they spoke too much for that to really be the case, but it always struck him a little like a farm hand coming to feed a raging bull, a tamer come to tend to the wounds of the injured beast.

  
Ah, he realised, a light titter of a laugh on his lips. They gave him the same look they gave the injured Owlbear in the cave. Caution. An act of intimidation to show dominance. A careful handling of a dangerous creature. He was almost hurt. He wasn’t that dangerous. Not unless he had to be.

  
Perhaps he should have pretended to be more heroic from the beginning. Wyll was doing a grand job of that, strutting around like a great feathered bird going through the rituals to mate. It was almost embarrassingly on the nose, but it must have worked in the past. He wasn’t quite sure that Gelrinn bought into that, but there was enough they were interested in when it came to the prodigal monster hunter that made it clear he was not going to win that way. He found himself… oddly jealous of it all. Not the simpering puppy love evident when Wyll looked over at the little thing, that was nauseating, but the potential of the benefits of that bond. The favours that might be called. And the sex, of course.  
It had been so long since he had been allowed to indulge on his own terms, and the energy in the camp was… interesting, even if he found his companions to be less than sparkling. The more time they spent together, the more the bond grew in their heads, the more he wondered just how far he could push any one of them.

  
Perhaps he could go for Wyll directly instead? He was handsome, and did not seem opposed to interest wherever it came from. The monster hunter and the monster. It was straight out of a romance novella. Perhaps if he could leverage Wyll, stir up some sort of feeling or dependency, then the little thing might see him as more essential. Or the jealousy might just make his departure all the more likely. The temptation was overwhelming though; if he was to not win Gelrinn around, at least he could make sure he wasn’t quickly forgotten. It was so tempting to just seduce him, play to his easy vanity, just so see if the carefully constructed managing of everybody fall apart. Just to see what little Gelrinn would do.  
It had been so long since he had been able to construct any real tensions in those around him. He wondered if he even had it in him anymore. Well, wondered was possibly a bit strong. He knew he had the capacity to turn them all against each other with a simple few words, but he rather wondered if he would find the end result as satisfying as he used to. Back in his mortal days, quick satisfactions were easy and plentiful, and he had still just about been young enough for them to be fun, but the real satisfactions, the long game…

  
When making a good wine, one mustn’t rush the grapes on the vine. They will start to rot in their own time, and must be allowed to exist in that state until they are ready to be crushed. The situation with the little brain bugs was carefully balanced, and right now they all needed each other for survival. He saw it, and he was certain that Gale at least was worldly enough as well to see it. Maybe that was the real reason for Gelrinn’s little tightrope walk between them all. Maybe the importance of keeping a group together, of finding the cure, was the reason for this carefully constructed performance. Maybe he should be flattered that she did not think him worth playing like a fiddle, perhaps it was a sign that she respected the fact that he was not so easily played.  
Whatever it was, he found himself wasting far too much time thinking on it. One way or another he needed some kind of excitement, something more than this awful, careful do-goodery. Hopefully they could find a way forward in this wretched horrible mess, otherwise, well… he might have to make a mess of his own.


End file.
